Near KY State Record Skipjack Caught 11/1

Yes, it's true but I'll get to that in a minute. I put in at the Public Landing which I never do but since this was a day trip I figured I'd save $10. Got the boat ready and started backing down. I normally get a couple feet from the water, stop and undo the bow strap. Today I unhooked further up and really don't know why. As I started to brake the boat started to slide off the bunks. OH KERRRRRRRRAPPPPP!!! Fortunately I was lined up and let off the brake and let her go in the water. Huge splash but she went in the water and not on the ramp. THAT would have seriously ruined my day... Apart from a major cardiac attack nothing was hurt and I proceeded as normal.

I wanted to play a bit today and I also wanted to take advantage of the beautiful conditions and get some skips. I knew that the discharge at AEP was the place to be so off I went. Ran at 5,000 RPM most of the way down there with the GPS reading 47 mph. Water was smooth and almost glass in some spots. Very pleasant.

Hit the discharge and immediately started hitting skips. I like them in the 8"-9" range and they were all that size. After boating about a dozen a huge blow-up happened about 40 feet to my left. A cast to the spot resulted in an instant hard hit and the fight was on. I thought I'd caught a stupid gar but it was fighting too well. I saw the fish for a second and then thought it was a hybrid. When I got the fish near the boat I saw it was a skip and a nice one at that. Swung him in and was shocked to see a skipjack that was easily a pound or better. I continued to throw in the area and brought 6 more just like it in the boat on 6 consecutive casts. That action stopped as quickly as it started and I returned to the original spot where I started getting the 8" size again. 10 minutes later the water erupted again and I turned to hit the spot. First cast got smacked and straightened the hook on my little jig. After bending it back I threw back and got hit right away. This fish was substantially larger and came out of the water like a tarpon, easily getting a foot of air. I buried the rod tip in the water to hold him down and brought him to the boat. I had no net so I had to swing it in and as I did, the hook ripped out and the fish fell into the boat. HUGE was all I saw. I coolered the fish and caught several more of the 1-2 lbers and then had to leave.

Got home and checked the fish out. 18 1/4" long and 2.82 lbs on the digital food scale we have. Maybe not a "certified" scale but close enough for me. That's almost a 3 lb skippy! What a beast. I'll try to get a picture if I can.

Anyway, de-tailed them all, dried them off and vacuum-packed them all. I now have plenty of cut bait for later on and a memory. Hope to get out again maybe Monday if things work out.

First one is big fish after head and tail cut off- I should have taken the picture before the butchering started but it wouldn't fit in my cooler. The other two fish are 16" about and you can see how much wider the body is on the middle fish. 11" girth on that fish compared to 9" on the other two. Looking back, I wondered at the time if I should have cut the thing up first. It would have dwarfed the other two fish. The other two whole fish were 16" from nose to tip of the tail, pinched.

The fish in the sink are the average fish- the sink is 16" across longways. The skips are stiff from being on ice all day long and they are slightly curled.

Biggest skips I've ever caught and they were a blast...

UFM82

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Great Report, UFM! I've been boatless for a while but just picked up my new (new to me, anyway) Triumph 170CC today; taking it out of the public landing tomorrow afternoon for a couple hours; maybe I'll try for some of those skips.

Great report. Man those things are fun. I would love to try for them with a fly rod. The biggest one I caught had to be close to the 3 lb mark also. I've caught many 1 1/2 to 2 lb skippies and when the big beast jumps out of the water, you know you have something special. Sounds like Team Smack is going to have to get in on that action. We have just the weapon to use on them. I would love to use some skip steaks on those lazy Lake Cumberland stripers in a couple of weeks.

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